Submission + - AI and the 4-Day Work Week (bbc.com)

Submitted by hadleyburg
hadleyburg writes: The BBC reports "Tech leaders say AI means less work — their staff say they work up to 90 hours a week".

While a 4-day working week was suggested as one of the benefits of AI, it hasn't yet come to pass — not even in the AI companies themselves.

Submission + - It's Not Just RAM: Windows Licenses Are Also Pushing Up PC Prices (cnet.com)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: Several sites that closely follow Microsoft news, including Windows Central and Windows Latest, have published articles citing a report from Taiwan’s Economic Daily News that claims some PC manufacturers are seeing a 7% to 10% increase in the cost of Windows 11 licenses.

PC makers pay for Windows as part of their OEM, or original equipment manufacturer, costs. Because they buy licenses in bulk, they get a sizeable discount over what a consumer would pay for a new copy of Windows 11. But given the existing cost pressures from other components, a big Windows 11 price hike could lead them to pass on some of the added cost to PC buyers. According to the EDN story, PC makers could raise prices by about 5% over the next quarter due to the reported Windows price hike.

OEM pricing for Windows varies by company and even by the type of processor being used in the computer. Two of the largest PC makers in the region, Asus and Acer, already confirmed PC price increases earlier this year. In the case of Asus, the PC price increase was 30% for Taiwan.

While Windows 10 users were given Windows 11 as a free upgrade, for consumers who aren’t OEM manufacturers, the cost of the operating system is $139 for the Home version and $200 for the Pro version.

A representative for Microsoft declined to comment on the report.

Submission + - The Mystery of Dark Oxygen (archive.ph)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Enterprising scientists have been conducting research in Moab Khotsong for many years, but the mine became particularly valuable to biologists after an earthquake struck nearby in 2014. A group of Japanese geoscientists soon started drilling toward the fault line under the shaft. After half a mile, extremely salty radioactive water started flowing out of the borehole. This water, in turn, attracted researchers who investigate the deep biosphere—the poorly understood microbial ecosystems in the earth’s crust—which has been estimated to contain ten to fifty per cent of the biomass on Earth. Tullis C. Onstott, the late Princeton geobiologist who authored “Deep Life: The Hunt for the Hidden Biology of Earth, Mars, and Beyond,” told colleagues that he’d spent twenty-five years searching for water like what was found in Moab Khotsong. “It’s totally separate from the surface world,” Thomas Kieft, a microbiologist who worked with Onstott, told me. “It’s totally separate from photosynthesis.”

Submission + - Ordinary WiFi can now identify you with near-perfect accuracy (sciencedaily.com) 2

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Ordinary WiFi networks could quietly become powerful surveillance tools, allowing people to be identified without cameras, special sensors, or even carrying a connected device. Researchers showed that unencrypted signals routinely exchanged between WiFi devices and routers can be used to create radio-based images of people and recognize them within seconds. In tests involving 197 participants, the system identified individuals with nearly 100% accuracy, even from different angles and regardless of how they walked.

Submission + - Scientists turn Starlink into a giant scanner for Earthâ(TM)s upper atmosph (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Researchers have found a clever new way to map a part of Earthâ(TM)s upper atmosphere that is notoriously difficult to observe. Using orbital data from roughly 1,200 Starlink satellites, they reconstructed changes in atmospheric density about 500 kilometers above Earth. The approach could sharpen satellite tracking and help reduce the growing risk of collisions in increasingly crowded orbits.

Submission + - Swarms of tiny robots remove microplastics from soil and water (phys.org)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Scientists from the Czech Republic have created microscopic cleanup robots that successfully removed microplastics from both soil and aquatic environments in the lab. Details of their work are published in the journal npg Asia Materials.

To build the robots, researchers started with microscopic MXene particles made of ultrathin, stacked layers. The material has a large surface area and surface chemistry that help it attract and hold plastic. They then coated the particles with magnetic nickel nanoparticles so rotating magnetic fields could drive the tiny robots.

Then came the testing phase. The team placed swarms of these microbots into water and soil samples contaminated with plastic. The externally generated magnetic fields made the robots spin and tumble through the liquid and squeeze through tiny water-filled gaps in the soil.

Submission + - Freenet: Apps Without Platforms

Submitted by Sanity
Sanity writes: Earlier this year Slashdot covered the launch of the completely redesigned Freenet. I recently gave a talk about what we've been building since then. Unlike traditional web applications, apps on Freenet have no central server or database, with application state instead distributed across the network. These now include decentralized group chat, publishing, search, and fully decentralized Git hosting. The talk also gets into some of Freenet's internals, including how we use machine learning for network routing.

Submission + - Smart Glasses are now Cheap (rnz.co.nz)

Submitted by hadleyburg
hadleyburg writes: Radio New Zealand reports that "Privacy experts warn of gaps in NZ law, as camera glasses hit Kmart shelves".

Historically there has been an appreciation of "street photography" where unwitting members of the public are photographed on the street, in a candid fashion, capturing a feeling at a particular moment. It can capture history and create art.

But as the photography of the public has become more pervasive, with smart phones, and now cheap smart glasses, issues of privacy start to be weighed up against the rights of the artist.

Submission + - New flapping robot swims and flies like a diving bird (mit.edu)

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: Loons, gulls, puffins, and petrels are some of the 100 species of birds that can both fly and swim. These diving birds can plunge in water to swim after prey, and leap back into the air to fly away.

Inspired by these naturally aquatic aviators, engineers at MIT and EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, have designed a robot that can swim underwater, then flap out of the water to continue flying through air, much like diving birds, reports MIT News.

The “flapping-wing aerial-aquatic vehicle,” or FAAV, weighs less than 300 grams (about half a pound) and is designed to help scientists study the mechanics that enable diving birds to fly through air and water.

The new robot roughly resembles a bird, with a body, two wings, and a tail. The body contains a battery and waterproof electric motor that drives a crankshaft, which in turn pumps the wings up and down at preset frequencies. The wings are made of thin membranes that are coated with hydrophobic nanoparticles to help wick away water. And the tail is motorized, enabling it to change its angle to help the robot fly up or dive down.

The paper appears in the journal Science, and, more accessibly, from MIT Libraries.

Submission + - The Roboguard Revolution is Short-Circuiting (404media.co)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Robotics companies promise that video-camera-toting security robots can deter and detect crime. But many companies are rethinking the approach after a trail of canceled contracts and questions about whether the artificial intelligence-powered bots are meeting the needs of businesses and local governments.

Proof News found evidence of at least 21 security robot deployments since 2015. We contacted contract holders and combed news articles and determined that at least 13 of those programs have ended. Silicon Valley-based Knightscope secured the most security robot contracts, according to Proofâ(TM)s analysis, and also suffered the bulk of cancellations.

For example, New York Cityâ(TM)s then-Mayor Eric Adams installed a Knightscope robot on the overnight shift at the Times Square subway station, but the program was scrapped when the pilot expired in 2024. City leaders did not respond to Proof Newsâ(TM) questions about why the robot wasnâ(TM)t renewed. By the end of its assignment, it was reportedly gathering dust in an empty storefront.

Submission + - Zuckerberg faces questions over why superyacht reportedly declined to help ship (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Alain Williams
Alain Williams writes: Mark Zuckerberg has faced questions over why a small cruise ship in south-east Alaska rescued a stranded skiff and its crew when his 387ft superyacht had been closer.

The Silicon Valley billionaire’s yacht, worth a reported $300m, is said to have “repeatedly” declined to assist when a nearby boat called for help last week.

Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms, was not on board at the time, a spokesperson told Forbes.

When a nearby 21ft skiff ran out of fuel between Petersburg and Juneau, the Alaska Beacon reported operators of a cruise ship that was further away than Zuckerberg’s yacht came to the rescue.

“I’m on a small-ship Alaska cruise with my son,” a passenger on the UnCruise Adventures ship Wilderness Legacy posted on Bluesky.

“Our boat rescued a stranded vessel last night and apparently we did that after the Coast Guard radioed Mark Zuckerberg’s yacht – which was closer – and they repeatedly refused to respond. (There was near unanimous booing when the captain announced this).”

Submission + - AI push is putting banks at mercy of tech firms, warns Moody's (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Alain Williams
Alain Williams writes: The rating agency Moody’s has said the race to adopt AI is putting big banks at the mercy of a small group of Silicon Valley firms, leaving them vulnerable to widespread outages and price gouging by profit-hungry tech bosses.

The financial sector’s efforts to integrate AI into day-to-day operations will eventually cut costs and increase revenues across the City and Wall Street, Moody’s said.

But that will require “substantial investments”, and with so many rivals racing towards the same goal, many of those benefits will end up being “competed away”.

AI will also create bigger risks around data privacy, cybersecurity, fraud and so-called “deposit flight”, as well as an overdependence on a small number of tech firms, the rating agency warned.

Submission + - Reddit Bans 11-Year Account For Announcing a GPL Game, stress testing EU DSA (reddit.com) 3

Submitted by DF5JT
DF5JT writes: On July 26 I posted a single announcement in r/backgammon: GNU Backgammon for Android, GPLv3, the first standalone backgammon engine on F-Droid. Reddit's spam filter removed the post and permanently banned my 11-year, 30,000-karma account — the result is publicly visible at reddit.com/user/OE1FEU. To this day Reddit has given no reason whatsoever, although Article 17 of the EU's Digital Services Act makes a statement of reasons mandatory. The only appeal channel is a 250-character web form that sends no confirmation and never answered; Reddit's own help text admits: "you may not have received a message to your inbox." A GDPR export of 11 years of data came to 7.2 MB, every post truncated after a few lines, with zero data about the ban decision. So I spent one day escalating through every mechanism the EU provides: certified out-of-court dispute settlement at Austria's RTR, complaints with the Austrian and Dutch Digital Services Coordinators, the data protection authority (citing the ECJ's SCHUFA ruling on automated decisions), noyb, and Austria's consumer association. Bonus finding: the European Commission's DSA Transparency Database contains 14,067 Reddit statements of reasons for that week — none for my ban — and the Commission's own feedback form limits reports to 500 characters and crashed with a 500 Server Error. Is the DSA enforceable for ordinary users, or just paperwork?

Submission + - Roseville, CA Study Finds 71% Error Rate for Flock Cameras (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by Cognitive Dissident
Cognitive Dissident writes: According the Business Insider, a study by Roseville, CA has found a 71% error rate in Flock License Plate Reader reports to the city police department. And the errors go far beyond the ALPR.

Business Insider filed public-records requests to obtain email correspondence, data, meeting notes, contracts, and other records that reveal the extensive back-and-forth between Roseville and Flock over repeated errors by Flock's system. The cameras regularly missed vehicles, captured blurry images, misread license plate characters and states, and sent delayed alerts to police about vehicles possibly connected to crimes, the records show.

But this is not a unique situation, as the story goes on to give more examples of very high error rates and the serious consequences of those errors in many other communities across the country.

Submission + - This 'adversarial' pattern can prevent surveillance cameras from detecting you (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by ZipNada
ZipNada writes: Bill Swearingen has spent the past year running largely the same test, over and over again. The goal was to produce a computer-generated pattern that could block the surveillance cameras lining America’s streets from detecting it.

Some 31 million tests later, Swearingen says he can now produce patterns on-demand that, when applied to clothing and objects, prevent some of the most commonly deployed license plate readers and surveillance cameras from detecting whatever the pattern covers, from people to vehicles.

His project, which he calls noRecognition, allows people to escape the automatic detection and algorithmic surveillance used across the U.S. and beyond.

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